State of Remains of USS Cumberland and CSS Florida

USS ALASKA

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Joined
Mar 16, 2016
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USG study of the wrecks to include maps, drawings, photos, ship layouts, histories...

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

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It's hard trying to figure out whether or not Florida was finally sunk on purpose? Read where the ship was such a contentious topic, may have been better to get it out of sight than deal with a diplomatic nightmare by repairing after she was rammed. Experts would know. It's just weird the wreck is so near Cumberland's.

Wouldn't it be unsurprising Cumberland's wreck was in much worse shape than Florida's? By the time of the war, ship was already badly aged, Florida built to use during the war doing exactly what she did.

Maryland paper, Cumberland's part in Hampton Roads.
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cumberland hanpton rd.JPG
 
I'd bet Florida's sinking was on purpose.

I know if there was a enemy ship that had been causing havoc, and ended up being captured in the way Florida was and brought to one of my country's ports and an international incident was at hand with a second rate power demanding the vessel be returned with its crew to be released, with bigger world powers siding with them, whether I was in the upper echelons of command, or the lowest sailor I'd be d***ed if I'd see the ship released by my own government free to return to the depredations it had been used for against my country before capture.
I'd sink her in a heartbeat.

Personally I think the way Florida was captured was low and downright idiotic, because its such an obvious political nightmare waiting to happen, with potential affect other ships of the U.S. Navy, (What if another ship was in bad need of repair to its machinery in need of a port and could only make for a Brazilian port?), but after the deed was done I don't blame the Navy or U.S. Government for sinking her to prevent the Florida from wreaking havoc once more. I'd do the same thing.

Of course that is if it were intentional, though I do doubt the story of Porter and Seward conspiring to do, it still looks intentional to me.
 
According to notes found by his wife after his death, John Maffitt met with Admiral David Porter in 1872, and Porter told him the true story of the sinking. He said that the government in Washington expressed the wish that the ship was sunk, so under his orders the hull of the Florida was filled with water, and the ship allowed to sink.

http://discerninghistory.com/2014/10/cruises-of-the-css-florida/

During an interview between Mr. Seward and Admiral Porter, the former exclaimed, "I wish she was at the bottom of the sea!" "Do you mean it?" exclaimed Porter. "I do, from my soul!" was the answer. "It shall be done," replied Porter. Admiral Porter placed an engineer in charge of the stolen steamer, his imperative instructions being, "Before midnight open the sea cock, and do not leave that engine-room until the water is up to your chin. At sunrise that rebel craft must be a thing of the past, resting on the bottom of the sea."

The Life and Services of John Newland Maffitt, by Emma Martin Maffitt (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1906) p. 387-388.

Whether Porter's words can be taken at face value...?

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/capture-and-sinking-of-the-css-florida.91193/

Violating another country's neutrality to get at a adversarial combatant has happened before and since - please see the fate of the SMS Dresden at the Battle of Más a Tierra
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
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Violating another country's neutrality to get at a adversarial combatant has happened before and since - please see the fate of the SMS Dresden at the Battle of Más a Tierra

Oh I know, doesn't change it being a bad thing to me, because to me actions have consequences big and small. Plus if your in a war it just isn't right to drag people who have no part in it into the mess. But that's me.

But with La Bahia I've always viewed it as a transition. Before the war the United States vigorously defended it neutrality in foreign wars, with that neutrality being violated over and over by bigger powers, (Britain) contributing to the War of 1812, and at La Bahia its like that changed.

In a roundabout way its like we went from another small isolated power to joining the world stage as a great power. That line of thought is fraught with contradictions to be sure, but La Bahia almost seems like that moment to me. Too bad, it should get bigger press for a lot of reasons.
 
Nice to read that running commentary on the Cumberland's sinking. Nice bit about the (aft) pivot gun being the last to fire - a 6" Dahlgren rifle.

I've always wondered how long the initial cannonade lasted between the Cumberland and the Virginia. Lt. Selfridge ,of the former, states that only the bow pivot gun , a 10" Dahlgren, and a couple of the extreme forward starboard 9" Dahlgren guns could bear on her prior to the crash. It was only after the fatal ramming that the Cumberland let loose at least three full broadsides. But the pilot, which was still aboard the frigate at the time, claimed that the Cumberland opened up with both pivot guns at long range, and then as her target got closer, gave the Virginia "six to eight" full broadsides before she passed, presumably turned, and came back to the Cumberland on the latter's starboard bow, at the point where Selfridge begins his version.
 
The hull of the Cumberland was systematically blown apart after the war, as explained in Archeology Magazine, in the Sept/Oct. 1987 issue, pp. 50-8, entitled "Civil War Legacy Beneath the Waves", by Samuel G. Margolin. Page 54 tells us:

"... After the Battle of Hampton Roads, the Federal government was anxious to determine the feasibility of raising the sunken remains of the Cumberland. As early as March 21, 1862, a New York salvage firm had been approached, but the actual primary evaluation of the wreck was conducted in May by a Massachusetts salvage diver, Loring Bates.His report, the earliest account of conditions the sunken warship, stated that 'the Cumberland lies in sixty-six feet of water, deeply imbedded in the mud, healed to an angle of forty-five ... the water is very thick and it was with some difficulty that we could get about ... everything appears in confusion.'

Bates concluded that the damage sustained by the vessel was too extensive to justify the cost of raising her. Accordingly, the government sold the rights of recovery a succession of salvage firms whos efforts over the course of a decade with limited , or at best, questionable success. The primary objective was to retrieve the paymasters safe, reportedly containing a minimum of $40, 000 in gold specie. Despite a Detroit salvage company's claim to have located and raised the safe in 1875, George B. West, a Newport News resident who's memoirs contain the only known eyewitness account of post Cvil War salvage activities in the Hampton Roads area, observed no-one ever knew 'what was done with the safe, and it was never reported that any gold was taken from it.'

West's memoirs also offer a rare glimpse of the modus operandi of the 19th century salvage diver as well as the hazards associated with his profession. A German salvors' plan to reach the safe was to begin under the stern of the wreck and progressively blow his way - by detonating a series of charges - to the paymasters cabin."

Now we know why the Cumberland's hull is in such bad shape!

"George West's only account [of the Florida] informs us that the commerce raider was 'stripped by divers' after the war ... [and] 'She must have been magnificently built, for the divers said the state rooms were very handsomely decorated. ' "
 
Personally I think the way Florida was captured was low and downright idiotic, because its such an obvious political nightmare waiting to happen...

A calculated risk / gamble, though I don't know if Commander Napoleon Collins was trying to calculate any of that, - OK so Brazil gets upset...Britain and France issue their diplomatic displeasure pro forma for future reference and precedent. Were they going to declare war over a ship that belong to a belligerent that was not formally recognized by any other nation? No. Britain was probably secretly glad Florida was taken out. And Britain and France weren't going to use this as casus belli in support of one of the largest slave nations on Earth.

America has done this as in the case of the USS Liberty in 1967. Much diplomatic kerfuffle but no meaningful action.
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
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